The sixth annual Peace, Safety and Human Rights Lecture: a memorial to Dullah Omar, Unisa Senate Hall, Muckleneuk, Pretoria by Trevor A Manuel, MP Minister in the Presidency: National Planning Commission

07 Nov 2013

Let me express appreciation to the Unisa Institute for Social and Health Sciences for the honour of delivering this lecture. Dullah Omar was my comrade, friend and mentor, so the privilege of recalling his contribution is truly profound.

It is correct that we thus honour his memory. In spite, or perhaps because of his rich contribution, he was incredibly self-effacing. On an occasion such as this, he would say that he was undeserving of the honour because he was shaped by circumstances and that he was privileged to be a small part of a generation of great legal minds.

Both of these points are, of course, true - but it in no way detracts from the greatness of the contribution of each individual and the quality of the collective contribution. Dullah's work on the Constitution was primarily as part of the Committee on Constitutional Principles convened by OR Tambo, and comprised people such as Dullah Omar, Pius Langa, Kader Asmal, Joe Slovo, Albie Sachs and Zola Skweyiya - the majority of that grouping has passed on, but their work has a strong and enduring quality.

It is also correct that we not detract from those who drafted our final constitution - and the names of Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer are important, they were 'the channel' and the delivered 'the deal', but none of this would have been possible without the solid foundation provided by the Constitutional Guidelines for a Democratic South Africa crafted by that grouping of ANC giants, who were also able to craft a tone that even hostile political formations could not spurn.
So, as a nation, and as a motley collection of heirs, we have those values. The question that confronts us is how we become those values.

The Founding Provisions (to our Constitution) defines South Africa as one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values:

a) Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.

b) Non-racialism and non-sexism.

c) Supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.

d) Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters' roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.

What exactly does this bind us to? Take the example of using "non-racialism and non-sexism" as a unique part of a constitutional definition. The term "non-racialism" has a distinct meaning - "non" is not the same as ‘multi', and do we know whether the term "racialism" includes the vestiges of tribalism?

In other words, can we ascribe to non-racialism and simultaneously uphold tribal notions? Can we claim to be non-racist and look beyond the norms of the Employment Equity Act that describes ‘designated groupings' to definitions that appear to approximate the pencil test? And what of non-sexism? What practices should a society such as ours tolerate in our endeavour to live up to the being the first nation to include "non-sexism" in our Constitution. And, what of democracy itself? What do we aspire to? How inclusive should society be? How accountable should our lawmakers be? Precisely how open are we required to be? Which nation's practices might we seek to emulate?

The questions about being the heirs to greatness are how we live up to the expectations that were set? What are the checks and balances for these provisions? Who are its custodians? How do we conduct ourselves when nobody's watching? Or when we think that we have not broken a law? And where, apart from an opportunity afforded by a public lecture such as this, do we evaluate our own performance?

The Preamble (to our Constitution) calls for active steps in order to:

• Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
• Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
• Improve the quality of life of every citizen and free the potential of each person;
• Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place in the family of nations.

The question must be asked: How will this be attained? Who checks? Who balances? Who argues for advances where these are necessary and how is the discourse managed?

Now, I have heard it said in some quarters that the Constitution was a sell-out by ANC leaders. Well, if that were true, then we must accept that so was the Freedom Charter, and its antecedent the African Claims. And so must have been more than a century of life of the ANC. It is quite impossible to read the Constitution and not have the riff and refrain of the Freedom Charter play out in your head. But, it remains simply a leitmotif, it sets out a path. No journey occurs merely because you can read the path to your destination on a map, it requires physical and mental action. The construction of that society dreamt of by our forebears and articulated in our Constitution is not automatic.

The Freedom Charter ends with the words, "these freedoms we shall fight for side by side, throughout our lives until we have won our liberty." And our anthem ends with the words, "Let us live and strive for freedom, in South Africa our land". I will leave the task of analysing the tenses to the linguists, the quality of the lyrics to the musicologists and the detailed interpretation of intent to jurists, but to my simple mind these are different ways of articulating the same thing - a lifelong commitment that involves determined and measurable actions by many.

However, it also requires of us to undertake continuous introspection. I want to emphasise that some of the differences find resonance in party politics and in the tendency to establish our own parties when we are ignored by others. Consequently, there'll be much political ambition masquerading as introspection in the run-up to the elections next year. I want to appeal to rational people not to shy away from doing what we must, as committed democrats; nor must we be ensnared by the sanctimonious pronouncements of people whose chief intent is election to public office.

The point I am making is somewhat different - our society appears to be sick, and we have allowed a drift from the path articulated in our Constitution. Returning our nation to where it needs to be is actually a society-wide and an all-in effort and the belief that the further balkanisation into smaller and smaller parties will remedy the problem could not be further from the truth.

The more important question is what we do about our observations of what we sense as being wrong. And how we seek to replicate the examples of initiatives that work well. Take, as a start, the Diagnostic Document of the National Planning Commission. There is no secret to the methodology. We looked at the Constitution and agreed that we need a sharper focus on lifting all our citizens out of poverty and focusing on the reduction of inequality.

We then raised nine sets of challenges:

• Too few South Africans have found employment;
• The education outcomes for the majority of black learners are very poor;
• Our public health service is over-burdened and inefficient;
• Our infrastructure is poorly maintained and under-invested;
• Our economic development path is exceedingly resource intensive;
• Spatial norms still lock the poor out of opportunities;
• The quality of public services is exceedingly uneven;
• Corruption has become an endemic problem; and
• There remains a lack of social cohesion and a sense of nationhood.

After consultation, we added a further four sets of challenges, namely:

• The need to construct safer communities;
• A new approach to social security is necessary;
• We need a collective approach to position South Africa in Africa and the world; and
• South Africa needs to focus on an inclusive and integrated rural economy.

My mandate this evening is not to talk about the National Development Plan, but do pardon me - it is actually an unavoidable corollary to the commitments made in our Constitution. We reflected against constitutional norms and standards, assessed the deviation and proposed a few actions to remedy the situation. Moreover, we were able to secure the endorsement of all political parties represented in Parliament, a wide range of NGOs, the faith community, academics, and yes, even a large body of trade unions.

Core to the approach is that the actions must always become society-wide. They do not necessarily need to start off at that level, or wait for the perfect moment of the alignment of all forces, but there has to be actions across a wide spectrum continuously. Some actions have already started in government - the move to professionalise the public service; the focus on a capable and developmental state; the new initiatives against corruption, and the newly released discussion document on an Integrated Urban Development Framework are all part of this.

There are some initiatives that straddle government and non-government, I would include the Education Collaborative Partnership and the new initiatives on Early Childhood Development among these. We are also starting to see some initiatives outside of government - I include the Inkulu-Free-Heid Youth initiative among these - essentially the movement is non-party affiliated and mobilises against political apathy among young people.

My submission is that we do not know nearly enough about the citizen movements and there clearly are not enough of them. I put it to you that we were able to cause the collapse of the apartheid regime by the strength of organised citizenry acting together. When we reached the point of the elections in 1994, we may have been confused, believing that the "freedoms" that we committed to "fighting for side by side throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty", as we would recite from the Freedom Charter, had then been delivered. We may not have been as crude as President George W Bush who stood on the deck of USS Abraham Lincoln, on 01 May 2003, off the shore of Iraq and declared "Mission Accomplished". But, without being that crude, we behaved as though that were the case.

Because we allowed for that demobilisation, we do not now have the societal mechanisms to immediately correct what we observe to be wrong. Just last week, Mam' Winnie Madikizela -Mandela spoke painfully of the lewd sexual conduct of youth in the townships, and of the backward, depraved conduct of the Sikhotane practice in townships. We have all expressed outrage, mostly too privately, at the ukutwala practice among some communities that sees young girls abducted by sexually depraved older men in the name of culture.

We express alarm at the abuse of and by teachers in schools. We are frozen in horror at the images of repeated instances of xenophobia, (or as some have described it "Afrophobia"). We are alarmed at the level of violence that has been commonplace when workers are on strike, when communities express dissatisfaction, or when students raise grievances on campus. These are a few examples of a much-wider societal malaise that must be remedied if we seek to return our nation to the trajectory described in our Constitution.

All of these awful observations are a daily reality for too many people who are powerless to do much about them. Well, the question is whether we should really be so powerless about these wanton practices? Surely we cannot hope to have a society based exclusively on the Ubuntu principle of the innate goodness of people, and have no remedy for those who blatantly and obviously step out of line, sometimes merely to test the boundaries of what they can get away with and frequently acting without an iota of consideration for anybody.

Surely a society where actions have no consequences is not a prospect even worth considering. The observations raised above, and granted, these are but examples of the issues that confront us in news headlines daily - some are blatantly illegal and should be acted upon, and others may be in the twilight of "a-frowned-upon-but-not-yet-illegal" action - these actions all speak to the absence of binding norms and mores. Do we understand this behaviour well enough? Might this often be an expression against the poverty and inequality of everyday life? Might it be an expression of the desire to have what others are endowed with? And, if that cannot be afforded, to pretend or destroy? What kinds of action would be appropriate? You can well imagine that this type of issue has arisen in society across history, occasioning drastic action at times.

The authors Robert and Edward Skidelsky remind us in "How much is Enough", where they write as follows: "The Athenian 'laws of Solon' dating from the sixth century BC, limited the size of funeral processions, and the value of food that could be served at them. There were also rules restricting the value of dowries and presents and regulating bridal dresses. Early Roman sumptuary laws had a similar focus on extravagance and ostentation at family events, restricting for example the size of mausoleums and of funeral meals. In later periods the focus shifted from weddings and funerals, to the conspicuous consumption of food. In concentrating their restrictions on luxurious items of consumption, the sumptuary laws were all well adapted to prevent the competitive escalation of wants, though this was not their main intention."

So yes, the fundamental debate about wants and needs is a core issue in considering the type of society we want to construct. I should insert an important caveat here - government is not considering the introduction of sumptuary laws. Though the temptation in my mischievous mind runs wild - just imagine for a moment how we could advance all manner of projects towards greater equity in society, from job sharing to fairer earnings, to integrated spatial development. Or think of how we could rescue many families who found themselves in the clutches of the abumashonisa when they have to pay for excessive funeral or wedding expenses. Just think of the possibilities! Says he, who has been in trouble for purchasing a BMW 7-series, and for which he has said, "Mea culpa, it is within the rules, but not an ethical decision."

Do we have an idea of the realm of the commitments made on behalf of future generations - because that is what it actually is - by the drafters of our Constitution and adopted by that wonderful gathering of the Constitutional Assembly on 8 May 1996. I was indeed privileged to have been a member of that Constitutional Assembly. I recall so vividly the tenor given to the adoption by that durable, uplifting and defining speech by then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, "I am an African".

Do we really understand the realm of the commitments? When do we stop healing the divisions of the past? How will we know that we have adequately laid the foundation for a democratic and open society where government is truly based on the will of the people? How would we have raised the quality of life and freed the potential of each citizen? When shall we have done enough to build a united and democratic state?

Is there a break, or even a timeout? How can we gather together the same energy as that which brought the apartheid system tumbling down? Or is that in itself a pretence - is there not still too much of the past embedded in the present, or do we think that it may be fine because the beneficiaries are of a different hue? I am suggesting that in raising these issues, with a measure of impatience, we live true to the great idealism that motivated us and held us together in the past. I want to emphasise that I am not speaking about a failed democracy or a failed state. I am responding to the reality that we have an exceedingly detailed experience of our collective past, but we need to build a future that none of us has ever lived in, and for which precedents are few. So a call for restlessness is merely a call for honesty and continuity. It is a call for concerted national engagement, and a call against complacence.

For us, there is the more important question of continuity. "So as a nation, and as a motley collection of heirs, we have those values. The question that confronts us is how we become those values." (Just a reminder, this sentence was used earlier, and the "values" refer to those of the Constitution).

Perhaps one big difference between the present and the past is that our struggle before 1994 was premised squarely on the struggle for justice. Justice, when present, or in its absence is palpable, and is not the same as merely producing laws. My submission to you is that in contrast to comrades like Dullah and those mentioned of his generation, we have allowed the struggle for justice to be discontinued. The question that has replaced it is rather, "What can I get away with?"

The author Tony Judt, writes profoundly about these issues, "Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest. Indeed this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost, but have no idea of what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? These used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them."

Right now, the eastern seaboard of India is being ravaged by Tropical Cyclone Phailin, the devastation is likely to be worse than any climate event in that part of India in a very long time. As with similar events elsewhere - Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004, future generations will be shown the high watermark. The question that confronts us is whether the values of our Constitution define for us , as South Africans, the high watermark of our collective human spirit and endeavour to nationhood, or whether it is but a mark along the way, reflecting the passage from apartheid to the type of society described in our Constitution. Bear in mind that the bulk of our Bill of Rights is premised on what the drafters called "a rising floor of rights'. We may even argue now that the floor may be static or even receding.

When we reflect on the contribution of Dullah Omar to Peace, Safety and Human Rights, these are the questions that we should reflect on, and remind ourselves that we are empowered by the Constitution to change the reality we observe. It requires a commitment to active citizenry; it demands a belief in the ability to participate in the task of leadership - but it has to start with an acknowledgement of the greatness of the gift of the Constitution from the generation that has gone before, of the knowledge that it presents for movement and that it does not exist simply as a monument. That realisation depends on you.

Thank you.

Issued by Statistics South Africa, November 7 2013

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